USA Cycling junior cyclist Magnus White of Boulder (Ethan Glading / Courtesy of USA Cycling)

The trial of a driver accused of hitting and killing a 17-year-old cyclist in Colorado two years ago began Monday afternoon with opening statements from lawyers and emotional testimony from the victim’s father.

Yeva Smilianska, 24, is accused of reckless vehicular homicide in the death of Boulder, Colorado, cyclist Magnus White, a rising star who had been scheduled to race on the U.S. national team. He was fatally struck on Colo. 119, also known as the Diagonal Highway, in 2023.

If found guilty, Smilianska faces between two and six years in prison. Smilianska is currently free on bond. She is set for a five-day jury trial this week.

On Monday afternoon, the left side of the courtroom in Boulder District Court was packed shoulder to shoulder by family members and friends of White. The seats on the right side of the courtroom were sparse and mainly occupied by media.

Following opening statements, Michael White, the father of Magnus, took the stand as the first witness in the case. He spoke through tears about his son and the day he was killed.

“When Magnus was born, the doctors said he was the perfect mix of his mother and I,” Michael White said. “He took the best of both of us. He was the kind of kid who was never bored; always wanted to be active, doing something.”

Michael White said Magnus loved to drive his Subaru and loved skiing, was very close with his brother despite a 6-year age gap, and had a 4.2 GPA. The father said he was the first to take his son for a bike ride on the Diagonal, five years prior to his death.

“I told him it was safe to ride because it has a 10-foot shoulder… ‘As long as you stay all the way right, you’ll be fine,’” Michael White said.

The father then described seeing his son for the first time after the crash.

“When I saw him, he still had his cycling clothes on. He had dirt over the right side of his face. His head was really swollen. There was white fluid coming out of his ears. And there was just so much blood coming out of his mouth and everywhere,” Michael White said. “I had to turn away.”

Throughout his testimony, Michael White paused to drink water and wipe away tears. Above him, photos of his son were displayed on a TV monitor.

Prior to Michael White’s testimony, Deputy District Attorney Trish Mittelstadt addressed 14 members of the jury and told them about some of the evidence they will likely hear this week.

Mittelstadt said Smilianska made the decision to hit Magnus and that her decision to stay up into the early hours of the morning led her to doze off behind the wheel.

“She took this step. She made this decision. That is why we are here today. That is why Magnus is dead,” Mittelstadt said.

Mittelstadt showed the jury a series of photos of Magnus as well as pictures of the scene following the crash. Mittelstadt said that Smilianska took a substantial risk by driving and that despite witnesses saying she swerved into the shoulder multiple times, she did not stop the car.

“The defendant drove straight into Magnus White — killing him,” Mittelstadt said. “She took no steps to stop… no steps to avoid hitting Magnus. She did not even know she struck him, despite what her window looked like.”

Mittelstadt continued, “This is not a case where she clipped his handlebars. This is a case where the defendant made a choice; a choice to get behind the wheel when she knew she was tired, knew she was falling asleep.”

Defense attorney Timur Kishinevsky told the jury that he would ask them to find Smilianska guilty of careless vehicular homicide, not reckless.

“This is a horrific tragedy, there’s no other way to describe it,” Kishinevsky said. “…The defendant does not dispute that she struck Mr. White, ultimately causing him to perish.”

Kishinevsky said there is no evidence that Smilianska drove an excessive speed, was intoxicated, was tailgating or weaving between lanes, or engaging in road rage. The defense lawyer also added that Smilianska was extremely emotional after she realized the extent of the injuries to Magnus.

Kishinevsky had no cross-examination for Michael White but said he was sorry for White’s loss.

Deputy District Attorney Trish Mittelstadt gives her opening remarks while showing a photo of the inside of the defendant’s car at the scene of the accident that took the life of Magnus White during the trail of Yeva Smilianska inside the courtroom at Boulder County Courthouse in Boulder, Colorado, on March 31, 2025. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)

Magnus White was riding his Trek Model Emonda SL 7 bike southbound on Colo. 119 at 12:33 p.m. July 29, 2023, when he was hit by Smilianska, who was driving a Toyota Matrix that had crossed from the righthand lane into the shoulder, according to Colorado State Patrol Trooper Gabriel Moltrer.

Magnus was thrown from his bike and was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Smilianska was the only person in her car at the time of the crash.

Stephen Redfearn, who was Boulder’s deputy police chief at the time and is now the police chief, was first on the scene and later told investigators he briefly spoke with Smilianska and reported no sign of intoxication.

Investigators said in an arrest affidavit that “based on the totality of circumstances, it appears most likely that Smilianska was asleep at the time of the crash.”

Smilianska received “very little sleep” the night before, when she reportedly stayed up until about 6 a.m. at a friend’s house in Longmont, according to the affidavit. The morning of White’s death, Smilianska texted a witness 20 minutes prior to the crash that she was falling asleep.

Witnesses told police that they observed Smilianska veer out of the lane and onto the right shoulder multiple times before hitting Magnus.

Smilianska told police the car had a steering malfunction, and she did not fall asleep, according to the affidavit. Smilianska said the crash was not her fault, but that she was a participant, according to police. She also stated that she felt “physically great” but “emotionally tired” the morning of the crash, police said. Smilianska told police that she did not see White prior to the incident and felt “fuzzy” during the crash.

But a Colorado State Patrol investigation determined that there wasn’t a steering malfunction in Smilianska’s car, and there was no evidence that she braked while driving toward White.

Smilianska has no criminal record. The affidavit also indicated Smilianska’s license was canceled after the crash due to “a failure of her re-examination.”

The Boulder County Coroner’s Office determined that Magnus White died from blunt force head trauma as a result of the crash, and the manner of death was ruled to be an accident, according to the affidavit.

Magnus’s parents founded a nonprofit in their son’s honor called the “The White Line.” It was founded “to preserve, honor, and use the legacy of U.S. National Team Member and U.S. National Champion Magnus White to inspire cyclists globally, to support their development, to raise awareness of bicycle and automobile safety and create change for safer cycling environments,” according to a news release.

In May 2025, Magnus’s parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Smilianska. According to court documents, the civil action is stayed, pending the conclusion of Smilianska’s criminal matter.

NEW YORK – One of the familiar “hockeyisms” that Don Lucia liked to use during his time as head coach of the Minnesota Gophers holds true even today.

“The first team to three is usually going to win,” he would say, stressing the importance of his teams putting three or more goals on the board.

The offensive challenges for the Minnesota Wild, as they push for the playoffs while still missing two of their more dynamic goal-scorers – Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek – can be underscored with some simple math, showing how difficult it has been for the Wild to get to three goals on any given night.

Since resuming play after the 4 Nations break on Feb. 22 in Detroit with a 4-3 overtime win, the Wild have gone 8-9-2, and have scored 41 goals. That is an average of 2.1 goals per game. Take away the 11 power play goals scored by the Wild in that stretch, and they are averaging 1.5 even-strength goals per game.

Some nights that is enough, especially with the team generally playing stellar defense, buoyed by the return of Jonas Brodin, and getting solid goaltending from Filip Gustavsson.

Monday’s 3-2 shootout loss in New Jersey, even though it resulted in an important standings point, illustrated the offensive frustrations that have gripped the Wild of late. After the Devils scored a first period goal, the Wild needed to push and push and push to exhaustion to tie the game. The Devils took another lead, and Minnesota needed to take advantage of a defensive breakdown to get to overtime via Matt Boldy’s goal with 2:05 left in regulation.

Marcus Foligno, who set up the tying goal, joked that by this point in a season — with just seven games to go before the playoff field is set — the team is “pretty numb” to any potential offensive frustration after trailing 1-0 for much of the game in New Jersey.

“As long as we keep that a goal away, I think we’re fine. That’s the mentality we have. I mean, no one’s counting,” he said. “Really, it’s a lot of positivity. We think that if we can get one we can get another one after. This is how we have to play. We’ve gotta play stingy. We’ve gotta play smart and for most of the game … we had some really good, relentless pressure.”

On a team where injuries have been a non-stop part of the storyline, seemingly, since training camp, the healthy players are long past the point of worrying about who is not in the lineup or when they might return. And Boldy made it clear that nobody is looking for sympathy when pucks aren’t going in the net.

“I mean, what are you gonna do? Yeah, you’re down a goal, you’re not gonna sit there and pout, that’s the nature of life. Stuff goes wrong, you step up and you work harder, you put your head down and find ways to create a positive, score a goal, whatever it is,” said Boldy, whose 25th goal of the season — a pretty backhand move — tied the game late. “We’re not a group that pouts in here and that sits and gets all sad and stuff when things aren’t going our way. We put our heads down and go to work.”

And if that “head down, keep working” attitude gets them to three goals, most of the time the mission is accomplished.

April Fools from Da Beauty League

In 1993, Minnesota lost its NHL team to the Sunbelt, and needed to wait seven years to get a new franchise. For a time on Tuesday, it looked like the State of Hockey was losing an entire league to another warm-weather destination.

Da Beauty League, which has featured some of the best local NHL and college players scrimmaging a few nights a week in the summer has been a popular hockey fix for fans for the past decade or so, with games held at Braemar Arena in Edina. For hockey-starved fans in the off-season, the crowds are usually big, and it’s a place where autograph seekers can often get a hockey card or hat signed.

So there was naturally some shock and disappointment on Tuesday morning when the league’s official Instagram account included an announcement that Da Beauty League would be seeking to fill the void left in metro Phoenix when the NHL’s Coyotes moved to Utah, and that the league’s games would be played in Tempe, Arizona, next summer.

Alas, in the fourth paragraph of the solemn announcement, DBL officials confirmed that the relocation plans were just a harmless April Fool’s joke, and the 2025 edition of the league faces off on July 9 in Edina.

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“New York needs a comprehensive, modernized infrastructure to get food to hungry older adults and a system that goes beyond the outdated model of providing just one meal per day, five days a week.”

The near-bare refrigerator of a senior enrolled in the city’s home-delivered meals program last summer. Photo by Adi Talwar for City Limits.

Every New Yorker has a stake in how our city cares for its oldest residents—whether they’re our parents, grandparents, neighbors, or ourselves in the years to come. This reality takes on new urgency as our city is now home to a record 1.8 million older adults—more than the number of school-age children. A recent report found that the number of older adults living in poverty in New York City rose over 33 percent in the past 10 years, revealing a crisis throughout the five boroughs.

These striking numbers should concern all of us. Research by Citymeals and the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute found that 60 percent of older New Yorkers relying on home-delivered meal programs experienced food insecurity in the past year, with 65 percent living on less than $15,000 annually in one of America’s most expensive cities.

Even more troubling, the study found that 50 percent of those surveyed had never received any pension or retirement income, and 32 percent had never received Social Security benefits. As food, housing, and medical costs surge alongside our growing elderly population, we need to reimagine our approach to ending elder hunger.

The path forward is clear: city leaders must significantly increase funding for older adult nutrition programs. New York needs a comprehensive, modernized infrastructure to get food to hungry older adults and a system that goes beyond the outdated model of providing just one meal per day, five days a week.

Meal delivery programs are lifelines for New Yorkers like Jewel, a 78-year-old Bronx resident and former pediatric nurse’s assistant. Since suffering a stroke in 2001 that left her with severe vertigo, she rarely leaves her apartment. After overcoming tremendous personal challenges and serving others for decades, she now struggles with the basic necessity of feeding herself.

“I can prepare simple meals,” she says, “anything that’s easy, so I don’t have to stand up.” But even with her cane, Jewel can’t be on her feet for long. She relies on home-delivered meals for her most consistent support—one meal a day for the past eight years. But as essential as that support is, it doesn’t go far enough to provide food security.

The 1965 Older Americans Act established a federal program requiring only one meal a day, five days a week for older Americans in need. Sixty years later, this is drastically insufficient. Over 50 percent of meal recipients say they need two or more meals daily, with many describing the current service as “appreciated, but just not enough.” People cannot age safely in place while hungry and at risk of malnutrition.

This is not just a moral imperative but a fiscally responsible investment. A full year of home-delivered meals costs the equivalent of just one month in a nursing facility or one week in a hospital. Adequate nutrition helps older adults like Jewel remain home, avoiding costly hospitalizations and institutional care that burden our healthcare system and city budget.

RELATED READING: For Many Older New Yorkers, Home-Delivered Meals Offer More Than Food

The evidence is compelling: 87 percent of meal recipients report that these services help them remain in their own homes, 85 percent say the meals help them eat more healthily, and 81 percent say that meals help them manage health conditions. These outcomes save money across multiple city agencies by reducing emergency healthcare needs. 

Citymeals has launched several innovative pilot programs in response to this data, including delivering breakfast boxes that provide a second daily meal for the most food insecure recipients and an expanded mobile grocery program. But these efforts alone cannot meet the escalating need.

During this budget cycle, New York City must significantly increase funding for expanded nutrition programs that go beyond the outdated one-meal-a-day model. Recently introduced legislation by Councilmember Linda Lee would require that home-delivered meals be delivered each day of the calendar year—one solution that’s part of a broader campaign to increase vital funding for aging services in New York City and statewide.

More than half of Citymeals recipients are over 80 years old, nearly 20 percent are over 90, and almost 400 have lived at least a century. These vulnerable New Yorkers deserve a comprehensive, modernized approach that recognizes food as a human right and as essential preventive medicine, not a supplement. By investing proactively in food security for older adults, we make a sound fiscal decision that also aligns with our values as New Yorkers. 

We cannot allow New Yorkers who built this city to spend their final years hungry and alone. Our elected officials must commit to the funding that matches the scale of this challenge, ensuring older New Yorkers can age in place with dignity.

 Beth Shapiro is the CEO of Citymeals on Wheels.

The post Opinion: Older New Yorkers Built This City—Now They’re Going Hungry appeared first on City Limits.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld a state agency’s decision to deny an iron ore mine and processing plant’s request to allow a downstream lake to have sulfate pollution nearly eight times higher than the standard for wild rice waters.

On Monday, a three-judge panel unanimously said the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency was right in February 2024 to deny U.S. Steel’s request for a site-specific standard allowing Hay Lake to have sulfate levels of 79 parts per million or 79 milligrams per liter. The state standard for wild rice waters is 10 ppm of sulfate.

U.S. Steel, which owns the Keetac mine and pellet plant, had appealed the decision, arguing the MPCA’s decision was arbitrary and capricious, unsupported by substantial evidence and based on an error of law.

He cited a Minnesota statute that allows the MPCA to determine if a modified standard is warranted.

“The MPCA’s analysis in this regard was based on its expertise, to which we defer. … Therefore, U.S. Steel did not demonstrate that the MPCA’s decision was based on an error of law,” Harris wrote.

Paula Maccabee, executive director and counsel for environmental group WaterLegacy, celebrated the court’s decision.

“It’s just a very simple opinion, it’s really easy to understand, and basically, it’s telling the MPCA, ‘You did the right thing to regulate, and you’re not stuck with that equation that was thrown out by the administrative law judge,’” Maccabee said, referring to the MPCA’s previous attempt at replacing the 10 ppm sulfate limit with a formula that would have included the water’s organic carbon and iron content. The agency withdrew its rule change proposal in 2018 after an administrative law judge said it was “unconstitutionally void for vagueness.”

In Monday’s opinion, Harris quoted the MPCA’s statement that “recent concerns have emerged that suggest the degree of protection against sulfide that is afforded by iron may not be as great as originally conceived.”

“Overall,” Harris wrote, “the record does not support U.S. Steel’s argument that MPCA used its will and not its judgment when determining that the sediment-based equation was not scientifically defensible, especially when used to grant an SSS (site-specific standard), instead of a statewide sulfate standard. Even if research related to the sediment-based equation continues to develop, potentially leading to conflicting scientific opinions, evolving research does not make the MPCA’s decision arbitrary and capricious.”

U.S. Steel can still petition the Minnesota Supreme Court to review the case, though it has not said whether it would.

“We are disappointed with the court’s finding and are reviewing the decision to determine next steps,” U.S. Steel spokesperson Andrew Fulton said in a statement Monday.

The MPCA did not immediately respond to the Duluth News Tribune’s request for comment.

Sulfate released into water from industrial processes such as mining and wastewater treatment can harm rice at elevated levels as it converts into hydrogen sulfide within the sediment, but

Federal permits covering water released from Keetac’s tailings basin, where a slurry of water and fine pieces of crushed waste rock sit behind earthen dams, and its open-pit mine, limit the monthly average sulfate in wastewater releases to 14 ppm and monthly maximum sulfate levels in wastewater releases to 24 ppm. Those figures are designed to keep downstream wild rice waters under 10 ppm of sulfate.

But under the Biden administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in May sent a notice of violation to U.S. Steel’s Keetac iron ore mine and pellet plant, alleging that it released wastewater with sulfate levels higher than the permitted amount 299 times into nearby waters between September 2019 and September 2022.

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